BJP lays foundation stone for Nettaru kin house, Cong poses questions

Maqsood Maniyar| NT

Bengaluru: State BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel laid the foundation stone for the house of slain party worker Praveen Nettaru in Sullia taluk’s Bellare village in Dakshina Kannada district on Wednesday, drawing a measured response from Congress leaders from the region.

While the Opposition Congress does not have a problem with the saffron party pledging Rs 60 lakh for a house for Nettaru’s family or paying compensation, it has an issue with the BJP-led State government not announcing any relief for the other two victims of the killings that took place in July in the same district: Masood and Fazil.

Congress MLA from Mangaluru UT Khader also expressed disappointment with the fact that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, despite having promised that he would visit the families of the other two victims, hasn’t fulfilled his promises so far.“That is an individual contribution since he was a party worker, they have done it,” he said.

However, he added that the neglect that the other two victims faced was a result of discrimination. “The government is biased in a communal sense. They’re not following the Constitution. They want to politicize and communalise everything,” he said. He claimed that the only way to limit the BJP from doing this was to vote them out of power.

Khader said that there was still time for Bommai to set things right and visit and compensate the families of Masood and Fazil. “It’s not a question of just Masood and Fazil. The government and the chief minister cannot be discriminatory and indulge inn partiality. If they do that, a problem will arise in society,” he added.

The former minister reiterated that it was “100 per cent wrong” to have National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases against the killers of Nettaru while the Fazil and Masood murders were being investigated by the state police. “This BJP government has given the state over to communal goons. We have to fight and counter that,” Khader said.

He also called upon different religious communities to not fall for the “agenda of certain political parties” and maintain peace. He added that social and religious leaders had a role to play in maintaining communal harmony. Relief paid in past The State government has paid compensation of Rs25 lakh to Nettaru’s family in the past.

The BJP and the party’s Yuva Morcha have given an additional relief of Rs25 lakh and Rs15 lakh to the slain worker’s kin as well. Praveen’s widow Nutan has received a government job. The families of Masood and Fazil on the other hand have only received exgratia from a private agency namely the Muslim Central Committee (MCC), which raised the money through fund raising